DJs - One Big File or Lots of Small Ones?

lopark · Post by **lopark** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:25 am

I was just wondering if most DJs load a track as one big wav/aiff file or cut it up (with a wave editor) into smaller files for loops? I'm trying to take the latter approach.

tokyojoe69 · Post by **tokyojoe69** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:36 am

Its a pain in the ass, but yes, thats what i do, but i keep the full version in the folder aswell, but as i said, its a PAIN IN THE ASS, but it makes the music interesting.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:43 am

well the beauty of Live is how it uses Clips.
you can keep the full song as a warped clip in your .als,
but you can also easily copy it multiple times for other 'loop' clips.
such as a clip with just the first few intro beats, or a clip with the main hook in the main break looped.

in the end, you can have 9 or 10 different clips as loops, and they're all referencing the same file, so there's no worry of filling your HD with multiple versions (one whole track, and various looped bits that were chopped out)

So i'd say the best route is to have the full track warped, and instead of using a wave editor to chop up smaller files, just use Clips instead.

DCools · Post by **DCools** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:41 am

Hola,

What AdamJay says is best BUT when you select a new file in live all this is gone, there is only one asd file. When you chop these loops up you don't have to do that each time you use it in other mixes.

Regards,
Diederick F.M. Cools.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:45 am

AdamJay wrote:So i'd say the best route is to have the full track warped, and instead of using a wave editor to chop up smaller files, just use Clips instead.

Well that's fine if you're happy to keep all your clips in one Live set as you can only save one clip (ASD) per track.

But if you want to load stuff on the fly, it doesn't really work.

I'm moving from one big file to a collection of smaller files. But until Live lets you save follow actions with the clip, or load one set into another it's not quite there yet, as there's no way to get Live to remember which clips to loop and which not.

So neither solution's perfect.

The fact that there's no solution that quite works for this is currently my number one gripe with Live.

vandeloo · Post by **vandeloo** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 12:55 pm

i split my large tracks into loops directly in live. without any external wav editor. just copy the clip, set the loop, rename the clip. do this till you have all your subloops of the track. now, bring all subclips in one scene, record it into the arranger (mute the audio therefor

) . now switch to the arrangeview, select the range you need and consolidating the loops. schwupps, all loops will render and you found this loops in a folder named like your ableton file, in the same directory. now, drag and drop this files into live again and set if you need this, the colours for the subclips.

any other faster solutions in here ?

supster · Post by **supster** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 12:59 pm

robbmasters wrote: So neither solution's perfect.

The fact that there's no solution that quite works for this is currently my number one gripe with Live.

that and the fact that pulling your loops out of a file on the fly in Session is problematic right now ... the brackets and offset dont snap right

.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:03 pm

supster wrote:that and the fact that pulling your loops out of a file on the fly in Session is problematic right now ... the brackets and offset dont snap right

Can you give me a bit more info about what you mean? Sounds like something I need to be aware of. Thanks.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:15 pm

I think he means that the loop brackets and play from locator don't work with the same quantize value set up for the project. IE, I set my session quantize to be 8 bars, but in the clip view in Session mode, the locators and play from locator still snap to values smaller than 8 bars. I find this frustrating as well, makes it near to impossible to set up new loops consistantly on the fly without lots of zooming.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:23 pm

Ah, OK cheers.

supster · Post by **supster** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:35 pm

robbmasters wrote:
supster wrote:that and the fact that pulling your loops out of a file on the fly in Session is problematic right now ... the brackets and offset dont snap right
Can you give me a bit more info about what you mean? Sounds like something I need to be aware of. Thanks.

posted a suggestion about it here:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17985

its something that you run into right away when you are trying to pull loops when you are mixing live

.

ryansupak · Post by **ryansupak** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:31 pm

Yep, the fact that you can't save multiple "clips" in a permanent way is a drag.

The alternative, which is rendering multiple subsections of songs as multiple wave files, is tedious as well.

I've always thought it would be handy to be able to drag-drop clips from Session View into a file folder on the sidebar, and have it auto-render whatever you dragged.

rs

lopark · Post by **lopark** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:42 pm

Thanks for the input guys. I can relate to robb's gripe. Ideally, I'd like to have one track as smaller files saved into a live "track file" with the follow actions and such saved. That way, I could just drag the track file into my set and be ready to rock. The more tedious stuff I can get out of the way, the more room I have to be creative during the performance.

Has someone already suggested a "track file" in the Feature Wishlist forum?

ryansupak · Post by **ryansupak** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:36 pm

lopark:

the "track file" concept has indeed been suggested. it's so practical that it seems inevitable.

i think a way to refine this process would be by adding drag-drop functionality:

let's say you had 3 clips, each of which had multiple versions of the same source wave file (they each could have different pitch, different offsets, whatever.)

to me, the absolute most intuitive thing to do is drag them back to the file sidebar, since I dragged the wave file from the sidebar to get the original here in the first place.

so, i drag my 3 clips to the sidebar. then, it should say something like "all 3 of these use the same source wave file -- "c:\mySound.wav". do you want to make a new, separate wave for each, or have each of these be sub-clips of the original wave?"

you make your decision, and it handles all the rest for you.

the only drawback i can see would be if, at some later point, you changed the original source wave. but, i imagine that Ableton could handle that by retaining any clip properties that are still applicable (pitch or warp-mode for instance) -- and truncate any clip properties that are no longer applicable (overloaded offsets, or overloaded warp markers, for instance).

$0.02,
rs

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 11:52 am

I can only join in hoping this will be looked at. But this has been reported, commented, in bug reports, wishlists, general, for so long now and... completely ignored by Ableton.
And yet this is so important to make "live" a live program, much more IMHO than including a cheap FM synth when you can get so many free synths plugins, but nowhere can you get plugins that can fix this kind of flaws in design.
Such a time/HD space waster.